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August 14, 2009

Does Ortiz Belong On The Bench?

SI's Joe Sheehan says the Red Sox must make a "coldhearted" decison and bench David Ortiz:

[Ortiz's] .219 batting average, .308 on-base percentage and .408 slugging percentage [now .218/.305/.399]— which projects to be the worst full season of his career — would be inadequate for a middle infielder, but they're absolutely crippling from a designated hitter. His brief hot stretch in June has been long forgotten; Ortiz has just a [.204/.265/.344] line since the All-Star break.

Ortiz brings negative baserunning value, and batting him in the middle of the lineup is just providing an escape hatch for opposing pitchers. ... The only qualification to be a DH is to hit, and Ortiz doesn't seem to be able to do that any longer. ...

The Sox can no longer afford to experiment with various alignments or wait for Big Papi to come around. As the decision to designate 42-year-old righthander John Smoltz for assignment last week shows, this is no time for sentiment. With the additions of Martinez and Kotchman, Ortiz is no longer qualified to be in the Red Sox lineup.

With 48 games remaining in the season, the Red Sox are in serious danger of falling out of contention in the East and will be fighting to the final weekend for the wild card spot. Now is the time for Theo Epstein to make the difficult decision and for Playoff Tito to take up permanent residence in the Boston dugout.

Ortiz was next-to-worthless in the first two months of the season -- and he's even worse now. In 49 plate appearances in August, he is hitting .114/.204/.136.

His OBP by month:

April .290May .279June .409July .306August .204

Boston's best infield has Kevin Youkilis at third and Casey Kotchman at first. That means Lowell, Ortiz and Victor Martinez would be the possible choices at DH.

If you covered up the names and looked at those numbers -- i.e., removing sentiment from the equation -- it would be next to impossible to justify ever playing the weaker hitter if the stronger ones were available.

But if Francona is going to keep penciling Ortiz into the lineup, in the hopes that maybe today is the day a hot streak begins, he must bat him no higher than 7th.

13 comments:

I hope Tito has stuck with him thus far, not because of sentiment, but because an 'on point' Ortiz is a weapon that any lineup would benefit from. And he has hope/faith that Ortiz has the potential to rediscover that deadliness.

It worked once this season, but is it worth taking the risk that it will work again?

Remember, for that month Ortiz was on, when he came up to bat, we all became reacquainted with that feeling of SOMETHING GREAT MIGHT BE ABOUT TO HAPPEN.

As he has reverted to his early season form, we have also reverted to OH MAN HERE IS AN EASY OUT.

That small slice of hope, of having a lineup with a threatening Ortiz in it, and knowing how much deadlier of an offense the team has, is perhaps what keeps Tito penciling his name in.

As the decision to designate 42-year-old righthander John Smoltz for assignment last week shows, this is no time for sentiment.

To compare Smoltz and Papi on "sentiment" is ridiculous...Smotltz never did anything for us, so letting him go , didn't really make anyone sad, to see Papi decline right in front of us is hard, and i am sure Tito realizes he isn't sitting where he is without him.....

I think I am in the minority on this, but I think that IF Tito makes his decisions because of loyalty or feelings, it is because its a long season, and for each game, he goes with what he thinks will be most beneficial for that game, but in the context of a whole season.

I just don't think that he would keep putting Tek or Ortiz in the lineup simply because he likes them or because of their past or anything like that. I think it's part of his/the organization's strategy.

I think I am in the minority on this, but I think that IF Tito makes his decisions because of loyalty or feelings, it is because its a long season, and for each game, he goes with what he thinks will be most beneficial for that game, but in the context of a whole season.

I often say something similar.

A manager has to look hard at the numbers. But he has to do more than that, too. He has to hold a team together, deal with his players' mental and emotional states, reward people for loyalty and for extra effort, for seniority, etc. There are all sorts of considerations.

If Francona was Playoff Assassin Tito every single day, he wouldn't be the great manager he is. His players wouldn't respect him as much, and that would ultimately effect the team's performance.

So I don't think that Francona or any good manager can only look at numbers to the exclusion of all else. The non-numbers part of the equation is not only "sentimentality".

However, there comes a time when the numbers become too compelling to ignore. To me this is obviously one of those times.

I assume he said Smoltz because he's talking about this season possibly going down the drain. But it also does not work because DFA'ing someone and taking them out of the starting lineup are two different things.

Joe Sheehan is a clown. He's far and away the worst writer on Prospectus and doesn't offer much aside from contrived contrarian opinions that it seems clear he doesn't really hold. He's like the Bill O'Reilly of the sabermetrics crowd.

I don't think Ortiz should play against lefties, but I'm against benching him. He's earned more than 450 at bats to right the ship; after all, the 3000+ at bats leading up to these 450 have been fabulous and with few peers. I don't think he's done any more than Jim Thome was in 2005.